Pulse radio ultra wide band (PR-UWB) communications can be used to facilitate low power, low data rate communications in a wide variety of applications, such as sensor networks. Such communications use periodically transmitted pulses of radio frequency energy to represent data. Power savings in such communications can be realized by turning the transmitter and receiver off between data pulses. In order to take advantage of the power savings of such communications, however, pulse radio receivers need to be able to precisely power off during times when no data pulses are being transmitted and power on when data pulses may be transmitted. However, current pulse radio receivers are lacking in their ability to perform this function.
Accordingly, new circuits and methods for pulse radio receivers are provided.